All Remedies Refusing
by karanadon
Summary: Set just post-"The Age of Steel". A frustrated Rose Tyler decides to clear her head with a pen and paper. Writing's very therapeutic, you know...
1. Chapter 1

"_Love is a sickness full of __woes__, All remedies refusing; A plant that with most cutting grows, Most barren with best using." –Samuel Daniel_

**Disclaimer: ****I don't own Doctor Who, it's all wonderful creations from the mind of Russell T. Davies that are copyrighted by the BBC. So yes, please don't sue me. Especially as I'm a student with very little money as it is...**

**A/N: This is set in the wake of Series Two's **_**The Age of Steel**_**. I must confess, to write this I've drawn on some of the experiences I've had with the love of my own life. What got me thinking was the idea of having someone who is so amazing, and brilliant, who can do things you can't possibly emulate – but who still has flaws too. And maybe you overlook these flaws - because their better qualities dwarf them, or because you just don't want to see the bad in the person you love. Or maybe because when you're together life is bliss, and it's only at certain moments that you can step back and try to look at it objectively—especially when you're upset. I know that Rose would have to get her frustration out every once in a while, or just take a break from it all-like the lovely moment in **_**The End of the World**_**, where she "just wants chips", or wanting to go home in the 2005 **_**Children In Need**_** Special. And we don't really see this happen again, and no more emphasis is put on it, at least not in this way. Of course, being the Doctor's Companion, and thus made of stronger stuff than your average human, the upset would be short-lived – i.e. only until she realises that she could never really be without him, of course, despite anything that might happen. But enough of my rambling - here goes...**

Rose Tyler walked into her bedroom in the TARDIS, slamming the door behind her. She tossed her coat over a nearby chair, and kicked off her shoes, watching as they bounced and rolled into the furthest corner of the room. She threw herself on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, her eyes still moist with tears. _How much more of this can I take?! _ Memories flashed through her mind - from Henrik's cellars with Nestene plastic dummies, right up to the marching ranks of steel Cybermen on a parallel world. The past year and a half had just been so strange, and scary, and impossibly, utterly brilliant—but what lay in store? _What if this rollercoaster ride comes to an end, and we never see it coming?_

_Some things are worth getting your heart broken for._

Sarah-Jane's words reverberated in her head._ Really?! _Rose had been given good reason to wonder during her time as the Doctor's—what had Sarah-Jane first called her? —his new "Assistant". She'd left her Mum on her own, lost her Dad _again_, and left Mickey in a parallel universe, where she'd never see him again. Her own boyfriend, who used to mean so much to her and had always been there for her! He had been so patient through thick and thin, despite all she did – even when she ran off to Amsterdam in a camper van with Jimmy Stone and spectacularly failed her A-levels. Granted, the Doctor had saved her life countless times, but he nearly left her stranded in the fifty-first century for love; essentially the same thing that she had done to Mickey! _You and Reinette. Breaking the portals saved the world, but it also meant that you _left_ me._

Rose shook her head, and sat up, wiping away her tears. _So despite all your amazing gifts, Doctor, this makes you no less fallible than me_. But everything she had ever experienced before seemed to pale in comparison, more and more, to The Doctor. The man who had given her a new life travelling the cosmos, dashing madly from one point in space and time to another. They had merrily gone on their way with little or no planning, like rebellious students on an extended Gap Year across the stars. She'd been so swept up in the maelstrom of incredible adventures, the rush and the sights and sounds, that she hadn't stopped to think about her future. She always thought that she'd find the time, somehow, to put her life back in order. Rose smiled briefly, realising she should know better, being with the Doctor for so long, and sighed loudly. Things would have been so much easier if the Doctor hadn't waltzed into her life, and shaken it up as casually as someone might do to a snow globe. _Which looks perfectly nice until the snow settles_, she mused. And what if he regenerated so radically that he hated to even look at her? What would she do then?!

A sudden urge overtook her to let everything out at once. From the Georgian-era bedside table beside her, Rose reached into the back of the top drawer. She carefully took out a biro and the nearest piece of paper she could find – a sheet of neopapyrus, from the Egyptian Imperium of Andromeda. Rose took a deep breath, and began to write...


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: ****See Chapter One**

Dear Doctor,

Here we are. This is me, Rose Tyler...getting things off my chest. I hope to _god _you never read this, but I just can't keep it inside my head anymore.

Thinking back to when we first met, in the strangest of settings for the briefest of instants, I can't believe how I kept _thinking_ about you. How I followed you and pestered you and stayed with you, a year and a half ago. Until you took me with you, to walk the heavens with you, shoulder to shoulder. Or so I thought.

Lately, Doctor, I've become aware of so much. At the start it was the wonders of the universe – all of the galaxies, planets and stars stretching into infinity, in moments throughout billions of years in the passage of time. But now...the honeymoon period's over. And I really don't know what to do.

I keep thinking about the first time we ever travelled into the past, when we were trapped in that cellar in Cardiff in 1869, and we both thought we were about to die. You took my hand, just like the first time we met, and despite all the zombies around us...I felt safe. You looked at me, eyes glinting in the gaslight, with a gaze that still makes me melt inside, and said: "I'm so glad I met you". I just wish you would show me that more often – give me a little glimmer of hope that I still mean as much to you as I ever did. Sometimes, I feel so inadequate next to you. Seeing all the things you can do, so well and so effortlessly, I just wonder what you see in an ordinary human. I'm not smart, I'm not strong, and I'm certainly not clever. Sometimes, I feel like your love is wasted on someone as simple as me, and that I'd be lucky for the chance to be on board to do your washing, never mind anything else. It's sad, I know, but...I'd do anything to stay with you, and be useful to you. I just wish you could see that.

You keep going on this path as though you always have. Even after nine hundred years, it's like you just can't live without the next big death-defying thrill, like a drug that forces you to hop from adventure to adventure to get your fix. I wonder what you love more – the adventures, or me. How do you live with it? Taking humans on your travels until they break, or you do, or worse? You engender this trust in people – which saves the Universe, but at what cost?

I mean, sometimes it's a bit more than that trust, isn't it? I wouldn't know if you've always been this good-looking, Doctor, but it's not an inconceivable stretch of the imagination to think of the long line of lovers that you've used and left behind over nine hundred years. And anything which fuels your ego shouldn't be stopped — heaven forbid! Like pre-revolutionary France. One thing Reinette said to me: "You and I both know, don't we, Rose? The Doctor is worth the monsters." I've got to admit, I am beginning to wonder. I wish I'd had the chance to ask her if it really _was_.

Clive was right. You leave a trail of death and destruction in your wake, because you just can't save everybody, at least not completely. You might be able to save their lives, but what about their liveli_hoods_, and families, and futures, irreversibly altered by the touch of a Time Lord, who almost certainly landed there on impulse? And you never stay long enough to pick up the pieces – whether it's about staying in a given place, or even a given moment, or even one adventure. And I get the feeling there's only so long I can do this for before I fall apart. We're always running, and always looking forwards – but sometimes it would just be nice to look back, once in a while.

Sometimes you're so human and so familiar...but at other times I look at you, and it's as though I don't know you at all. There's a Doctor I've fallen in love with, somewhere inside that body...but I don't always get to see it, even when I really try to bring it out. When I see it, nothing on Heaven or Earth could make me happier, but most times you're just running everywhere, saving the Universe at every stop. I know it's what you do best, and it's what the Universe depends on, but I just wish that sometimes...you could change your priorities, and spend some time with me. Because all good things come to an end. But I'm not even sure that thought, if it occurs to you, even worries you in the slightest. And that kills me.

I worry because of the times you've left me without saying goodbye. Just as you sent me home from the year 200,100, for example. I was sat in London, crying into a plate of chips, while you and Jack were out there fighting for your lives! I felt so helpless, so weak - thank god for the Heart of the TARDIS. And on that stupid message you left me (which, I'm sorry, does _not _count as a goodbye), you told me to "have a fantastic life". But you never even thought about whether I'd even be _able_ to. If I hadn't found my way back to you, it might well have hung over me for the rest of my life – thoughts of you and Jack, with no clue if you lived or died! How could I have lived a normal life after all I'd seen, and knowing the price I'd paid for it? And let's not forget the time you did it for love, too. I doubt it'll be the last. What _was_ it about Reinette, anyway?! You smashed through the mirror, saved the Universe...and completely forgot me. Was that on purpose?

The thing is, Doctor, you're amazing and brilliant, but could you just be a bit more..._human_ sometimes? _Please_? That's all I'm asking. Because I really can't carry on like this. I wonder if sometimes you just try and push me away, keeping me at arm's length, and hold back on your emotions because you know we can't last forever. But it's too late – at least, for me.

I wish you'd stop worrying and just _love_ me, because no matter what, I'll always love you. Nothing in the Universe can change that now. I just wish it wasn't this hard.


	3. Chapter 3

Rose looked up from her writing, her cheeks cold and wet from tears. Wiping them away with a swift motion of her sleeve, she leant back against the headboard of the bed and hugged her knees tightly, rocking back and forth.

"What if he stops wanting me around?" she said out loud, to no-one in particular. "What would I do then?" _Do I stay, clinging to hopes and taking one day at a time, or do I leave to avoid an uncertain future? _Rose pondered._ And if I leave, how badly will I regret it? One thing's for sure – I won't get another chance do things like this...not with a man like him._ Rose screwed her eyes tightly shut as tears began to fall once more.

"Rose?" A voice was calling from the corridor. _The Doctor! _Rose scrambled for the pen and paper, quickly slipping it under her pillow.

"I'm in here, Doctor!" she called back, ever so slightly hoarse. She quickly ran a hand through her hair and put on a warm smile as the door was flung upon by the man she loved, staring at her with a face so young but with concerned eyes far older.

She shuffled over as he sat down on the bed. He took her face in his hands, brushing hair out of Rose's eyes. "You alright?"

Rose nodded dumbly. She reached for one of the Doctor's hands, unconsciously turning her head to nuzzle into its comforting warmth. She gnawed at her lip, pausing to shove aside the turmoil in her mind to remember the most immediate of her concerns. "Will I ever see him again?"

The Doctor looked away, trying to find the words. He lowered his hands to hold hers, and took a deep breath. "I don't know. Honestly. We might see him tomorrow, we might see him next week, or..." the Doctor trailed off, aware that his gob was going to get him in trouble again. "I can't say we'll never see him again, because…the little things in time and space work themselves out in the end." He squeezed Rose's hands more tightly, his thumbs stroking light circles on her skin. "Somehow, I think the universe has a grand purpose for us all. I'm so old, I've seen suns die and civilisations rise and fall! But through all the chaos, and pain, the conflict and suffering between people, and nations, and planets…there's always an order, a higher purpose. Something good on the larger scale, from the most random sets of seemingly insignificant circumstances, no matter how bad or chaotic. Everything happens for a reason, the whole universe binding together, trying to create…I don't know what."

Rose stood up, aghast. "How can you say that, Doctor?" she said, alarmed. "You've lost your planet, everyone you were related to or grew up with. You're all alone. The Daleks took that all away from you – how can you say everything changes the universe for the better?"

The Doctor's face was a mask. "Even the Daleks do. In some ways, _especially_ the Daleks. They are horrific creatures, hell-bent on destruction and spreading their misguided order throughout the universe, but…they brought my people together in a positive way like nothing else in our history since we discovered time travel. And they've done the same for countless families, tribes and races across the cosmos. All brought together by a common cause – so they shared knowledge, shared hopes and dreams and goals and accomplishments. Alliances were made, friendships were forged, and people stood together, all united ultimately by a single common foe! Despite everything they've done, the Daleks have caused a lot of good in this universe. And as for the Time Lords, my people had their time. They were a race so old and powerful and isolated that they became stagnant. The universe in such a state of flux, of constant regeneration and change, that the universe didn't really have a place for them anymore. And that's _okay_.

"And just look at him! Mickey Smith is doing _so_ much good in that world! He's stopping the Cybermen, and he's fighting for his Gran, your Dad, and the whole of humanity! Isn't that something positive? And amazing? That took guts. Good ol' Mickey the idiot. Hero for a planet that isn't even his own!"

The Doctor sighed. "Sometimes you need to take a deep breath, a leap of faith, the riskiest of gambles to find who you really are, what you really want, and by just living in the moment and not overthinking things, you find that the path you got and the path you wanted are actually not so different. Maybe that's why I ran away in the first place…and I've never once looked back."

"Mickey will be _fine_, Rose. I know it.

The Doctor got to his feet. "You know, I've got something to take your mind off it, if you're interested." He took Rose by the hand, led her to the door and looked down into her sparkling eyes. "There's a moon in a system not too far from here which is _actually_ _made_ _of_ _cheese_. I hear it's _brie_-lliant!"

"That was awful!" Rose punched him on the arm, the Doctor wincing. "It's when you tell these dad-jokes that I start believing you're 900. You've _got_ to stop acting your age." She looked at the floor, and her bright red socks. "I suppose I'd better get some boots on if I'm coming with you. I'll meet you by the console then…?"

The Doctor looked unsure. Just then, the booming ring of the Cloister Bell sounded. The Doctor suddenly perked up, producing his sonic screwdriver, and pointed it at Rose. "Get your shoes, just gonna make sure it's not urgent. See you in a minute!" He ran out of the room.

"Typical…" Rose let out a small chuckle, reaching for a pair of old boots that she didn't really mind getting cheese on. She tugged them on, and reached for the letter she'd just written, pausing for a moment as she held it at arm's length, skim-reading it over.

Suddenly, the TARDIS lurched, a crashing noise echoing through the labyrinthine corridors. Rose snapped back to where she was. She sighed, and put the papers away. Maybe someday, when all the madness stops, she supposed get a chance to talk it over with him. When there wasn't an impending crisis, a horde of monsters, or even her mum waiting just outside those double blue doors, she would sit him down, air her grievances, and she'd be fine. She took a deep breath and ran for the door – towards her next big adventure.

Within the drawer, one ink-spattered teardrop silently ran its course over the paper.


End file.
